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WSJ: “A divided Federal Communications Commission approved a proposal by Chairman Julius Genachowski to give the FCC power to prevent broadband providers from selectively blocking web traffic. … The new FCC rules, for example, would prevent a broadband provider, such as Comcast Corp., AT&T, Inc. or Verizon Communications Inc., from hobbling access to an online video service, such as Netflix, that competes with its own video services. … The rules would allow phone and cable companies to offer faster, priority delivery services to Internet companies willing to pay extra. But the FCC proposal contains language suggesting the agency would try to discourage creation of such high-speed toll lanes. … The rules passed Tuesday are also likely to be legally challenged, and it isn’t clear if they will be upheld. Congress has never given the FCC explicit authority to regulate Internet lines, so the agency is using older rules to justify its authority.”

Wozniak: “Imagine that when we started Apple we set things up so that we could charge purchasers of our computers by the number of bits they use. The personal computer revolution would have been delayed a decade or more. If I had to pay for each bit I used on my 6502 microprocessor, I would not have been able to build my own computers anyway. … We have very few government agencies that the populace views as looking out for them, the people. The FCC is one of these agencies that is still wearing a white hat. Not only is current action on Net Neutrality one of the most important times ever for the FCC, it’s probably the most momentous and watched action of any government agency in memorable times in terms of setting our perception of whether the government represents the wealthy powers or the average citizen, of whether the government is good or is bad. This decision is important far beyond the domain of the FCC itself.”

Pethokoukis: “Milton Friedman had it right. Business is no friend of free markets. The Federal Communication Commission’s ‘net neutrality’ ruling is more evidence of this. What the FCC should have done is called it a year, went on holiday and left the Internet alone. – Instead, it found a solution in search of a problem. And that solution was more or less supplied by Verizon and Google last August. … The FCC’s new rules would ban providers such as Comcast and Verizon Communications from blocking or delaying lawful Internet traffic, such as online services offered by competitors. But the giant telecoms and landline providers would be allowed to sell faster service to content companies such as Google and Amazon.”

GigaOM: “The compromise is better than the original framework proposed earlier month, but it still has plenty of loopholes and rests on somewhat uncertain legal authority. That will ensure that the FCC is arbitrating network neutrality disputes for years to come and likely fighting for that power in the courts.”

ATD: “Why not focus on what is clearly the more important problem and without question in the national interest, and leave the finer points of how service providers and Web companies carry content to sort themselves out? Like it or not, a new, more legally complicated Internet is here.“